A federal magistrate in Oakland Monday ruled that landlords for the Harborside Health Center cannot stop it from selling medical marijuana in their properties in the cities of Oakland and San Jose. Federal Magistrate Maria-Elena James issued an order blocking the landlords from forcing Harborside to close its doors.

For more than six years, the federal government watched quietly as Harborside Medical Center grew to become the nation's largest medical marijuana dispensary despite knowing that its operations were illegal under federal law.

Oakland's Harborside Health Center is in the business of selling medical marijuana. This is obvious to anyone -- and in particular the dispensary's landlord, who last week had her effort to evict the dispensary tossed by a judge.

The city of Oakland became the first known jurisdiction yesterday to sue the federal government over its attempts to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries, escalating the local-federal battle over criminalization of the drug.

Aside from strikes at the medical marijuana industry's most vocal, visible, and influential leaders, little rhyme or reason has accompanied the federal Justice Department's crackdown on California cannabis.

Ever since the launch of the resurgent campaign against medical cannabis, I and other movement leaders have warned that limited federal law enforcement resources should be devoted to real crime, not medical cannabis.